a misinterpretation of the term a-wda-aKTo^, the sense of which is fixed iu the usage of the early church, Baronius and Bellarmine erroneously find in thia canon a universal law of celibacy, and accordingly deny the above-mentioned state- ment respecting Paphnutius. Comp. Hefele, i. 364. 250 THIRD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590. and freed women, ninst be kept away from the house of a clergyman." Similar laws, with penalties more or less severe, were passed by the eomicil of Hippo, 393, of Angers, 453, of Tours, 461, of Lerida in Spain, 524, of Clermont, 535, of Bra- ga, 563, of Orleans, 538, of Tonrs, 567.' The emperor Justin- ian, in tlie twenty-third Novelle, prohibited the bisliop having any woman at all in his house, but the Trullan council of 92 returned simply to the Nicene law." The "Western councils also made attempts to abolish the exceptions allowed in the ISTicene canon, and forbade clergymen all intercourse with women, except in presence of a companion. This rigorism, however, which sheds an unwelcome light upon the actual state of things that made it necessary, did not better the matter, but rather led to such a moral apathy, that the Latin church in the middle age had everywhere to contend with the open concubinage of the clergy, and the whole energy of Gregory VII. was needed to restore in a measure the old laws of celibacy, without being sufficient to prevent the secret and, to morality, far more dangerous violations of it.^ The later ecclesiastical legislation respecting the mulieres suhintroductcB is more lenient, and, without limiting the intercourse of clergy- men to near kindred, generally excludes only concubines and those women " de quibus jpossit haberi suspicioy * § 51. Moral Character of the Clergy in general. Augustine gives us the key to the true view of the clergy of the Roman empire in both light and shade, when he says of * Comp. the relevant canons of these and other councils in the second and third volumes of Hefele's Conciliengeschichte. ' Can. 5 : "No clergyman shall have a female in his house, but those allowed in the old canon (Nicaen. c. 3). Even eunuchs are to observe this." ' "Throughout the whole period," says Milman (Hist, of Latin Christianity, i. 123), " from Pope Siricius to the Reformation, as must appear in the course of our hi3tory, the law [of clerical celibacy] was defied, infringed, eluded. It never ob- tained anything approaching to general observance, though its violation was at times more open, at times more clandestine." * So the Concilium Tridentinum, sess. xxv. de reform, cap. 14. Comp. also the article SnBiNTR0DUCT.£, in the 10th volume of Wetzer and Welte's Cath. Church Lexicon. § 51. MORAL CHARACTEE OF THE CLERGY IN GENERAL. 251 the spiritual office : " There is in this life, and especially in this day, notliing easier, more delightful, more acceptable to men, than the office of bishop, or presbyter, or deacon, if the charge be administered superficially and